Awdah Al-Hathaleen, a Palestinian teacher from the West Bank who was recently denied entry to the United States by San Francisco immigration authorities when he arrived on a valid visa, was shot and killed today in an altercation with an Israeli settler according to family and Middle East journalists. 

Phillip Weintraub, a lead organizer of a Palestinian solidarity committee at Kehilla Community Synagogue, who helped sponsor Al-Hathaleen when he attempted to visit San Francisco in June, said he learned of the Al-Hathaleen’s death through Alhadlin’s cousin, Eid Hthaleen. 

“The settlers had brought a large bulldozer into the village yesterday,” Weintraub said. “So they were predicting something bad was going to happen today.” 

Al-Hathaleen arrived in San Francisco on June 12 with his cousin, Hthaleen to speak in the Bay Area about their experiences living in the West Bank during the ongoing war and their conflicts with violent Israeli settlers. The two men were sponsored by the Kehilla Community Synagogue, with which they had ongoing relations and received support in their village in the South Hebron Hills. 

But upon their landing, Mission Local reported the two men’s Bay Area sponsors learned that their visas had been revoked. After being detained at the San Francisco International Airport for a full day, and about 100 people gathered to protest their detention, they were flown back to the Middle East. 

While Weintraub called the situation Al-Hathaleen and his neighbors faced in the West Bank “horrific,” he did not believe there was any connection between their attempt to visit the United States and the shooting.  

The village, Umm Al-Khair, was featured in “No Other Land,” a documentary that won an Oscar in 2025. Yuval Abraham, a journalist for +972 Magazine and co-director of the film, reported Alhadlin’s death on X. 

“An Israeli settler just shot Odeh Hadalin in the lungs, a remarkable activist who helped us film No Other Land in Masafer Yatta,” Abraham wrote in a post today, with an accompanying video of a Yinon Levi, a settler sanctioned by the U.S. government, brandishing a gun wildly and shooting it during an altercation. 

It is unconfirmed who shot Al-Hathaleen, but Weintraub said the 30-something father of three young children was rushed to a hospital for a gunshot wound to his chest. 

A couple hours later, Abraham posted an update: “Odeh just died. Murdered.” 

Note: Awdah Al-Hathaleen’s name is also spelled as Ouda Alhadlin on his documents, but those familiar with him said he used the former spelling.